Cubs Draft Update: Could Be a Busy Week for Announcements

While Kyle Schwarber is the only draft pick that has officially signed with the Cubs, reports and rumors have suggested the Cubs have agreed to terms with several of the players that were recently selected in the draft. The Cubs have reportedly agreed to a signing bonus with third round draft pick Mark Zagunis. Zagunis’ deal, among others, has not been announced by the team. But that could change this week.

Matt Dorey, the Cubs Director of Amateur Scouting, told Bruce Levine and Wayne Randazzo during an interview Saturday on Inside the Clubhouse (670 The Score), that the Cubs are close to announcing several signings.

“We are getting really close. You will see most of the top ten-round guys start to filter in here over the next few days,” Dorey told Levine and Randazzo. “With the new collective bargaining agreement with the draft and the CBA we have to be real systematic in making sure that we cross all of the t’s and dot all of the i’s before we get these guys signed and off to the affiliate, whether it’s Boise or Mesa. We are making progress and we should have most of these guys signed and in Cubs affiliate uniforms for us pretty soon.”

Matt Dorey explained the team did not have a pre-draft strategy to save bonus pool money with their first two picks in order to use on players that were thought to be tougher signs in the later rounds.

“It really wasn’t a strategy going in. It was really just a byproduct of the draft and how we had it lined up,” Dorey said. “We really just took the best players available at the top of the draft. And because of them being college juniors and, with [Jake] Stinnett, he was a college senior, it just kind of worked out that way. We were able to kind of look at the draft and the rest of the draft and say, ‘Hey you know this might be a real good opportunity for us to be aggressive with some upside high school pitching.’ You don’t usually have the opportunity in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds to say, ‘Hey we can be aggressive here. Let’s really try to make an impact with some left handed high school pitching.’ So, that’s what we did. We were excited about our process with all three of those guys that we ultimately did end up selecting. We are still in the process of getting them signed, but we’re confident here by the end of week we’ll have some more information about exact dates for when those guys will be signed.”

The Cubs selected three high school arms in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds: LHP Carson Sands (fourth), LHP Justin Steele (fifth) and RHP Dylan Cease (sixth). Matt Dorey discussed their signability and if the Cubs view one of the three prep pitchers as more signable than the other.

“We were confident before we selected them that we would have a good opportunity, not only with our flexibility in our financial restrictions in the top ten rounds, but our area scouts have done a great job of getting to know these kids individually and their families,” Dorey said. “Through that communication and building that history with them, they [the scouts] came into the draft room and said ‘Hey we know who these kids are. They really do want to sign and they want to sign with the Cubs in the right situation.’ We had a pretty clear picture of what their signability was going in before taking them. Otherwise we would not have taken them in the top ten rounds because there is such a penalty if you don’t sign one of these picks.”

Wayne Randazzo asked Matt Dorey about a possible sleeper among the players the Cubs selected in the draft.

“It’s funny, I’ve been asked this question a couple of different times and there is one guy that, obviously we like a lot of the guys that we are ultimately going to sign, but the one kid is out of Mercer University, Chesny Young that we ended up taking in the 14th round,” Dorey said. “This guy is a really good athlete. He does a lot of the things offensively that we love. He gets on base. He’s willing to grind at bats out. He’s got sneaky power. He’s really versatile in the infield.”

“He [Chesny Young] is one of those guys who has really good make up and really good baseball IQ. And he’s one of those guys who will ultimately just play above his measureable tool set. We are really excited about him getting out, and like I said he does the things that we really look for in college hitters in that they control the zone, they get on base and they can drive the ball so he’s an exciting guy that we got deeper in the draft. We are really looking forward to getting his career started.”

The Cubs signing bonus pool for the first 10 rounds of this year’s draft is $8,352,200 million. If the Cubs sign a player in rounds 11-40 for more than $100,000, the excess is counted against the team’s bonus pool. If the Cubs draft a player in the first 10 rounds they are unable sign, the assigned slot value is removed from their bonus pool allotment.

If a team exceeds its draft pool by 0-5 percent it receives a 75 percent tax on the overage. If a team exceeds its bonus pool allotment by more than five percent and up to 10 percent, the penalty is the loss of a first round pick and a 75 percent tax on the overage. If a team exceeds its bonus pool by 10-15 percent, the penalty is the loss of a first and second round pick, plus 100 percent tax on the overage. If a team exceeds its bonus pool by more than 15 percent, the penalty is two first round draft picks and 100 percent tax on the overage.